In many industrial operations, use is made of high temperature ovens for the heat treatment of various products. Merely by way of example, there may be mentioned the use of ovens for removing solvents and drying coatings as applied to continuous metal strip.
Such ovens are very expensive to construct and maintain, particularly when it is necessary to ensure that mandatory operating requirements are always met. It is, for example to be noted that such ovens must sometimes be operated at temperatures as high as 300.degree. to 400.degree. C. while some factory codes require that the outside oven wall temperature shall not exceed about 35.degree. C.
In addition to the high costs conventionally encountered in manufacturing, installing and maintaining such industrial ovens, further difficulties arise as a result of the temperature difference between the oven interior and the outside oven wall. Such temperature gradients through an oven wall lead to different degrees of expansion and contraction, particularly during oven start-up and shut-down and consequently the oven structure must be designed so as to be able to handle such expansion and contraction.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide a novel modular oven panel which can be used in oven wall and roof structures.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a modular oven panel intended for the aforesaid purpose and which panel, while having a relatively simple construction and being of compartively low cost, can be constructed to provide the degree of thermal insulation which is actually required in practice.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a modular oven panel which can be utilized in the construction of an oven structure which in turn will be capable of properly handling the stresses caused by differential expansion and contraction during oven start-up and oven shut-down.
A further object of this invention is to provide a modular oven panel which can readily be used in the modification and/or repair of existing ovens.
Another object of this invention is to provide certain novel oven structures incorporating the modular oven panels provided by this invention.
Other objects of this invention will become apparent as the description herein proceeds.